DUTUIT Eugène, Héloïse and Auguste (EN)

Eugène, Héloïse, and Auguste Dutuit, collectors of Asian art

The Dutuit collection—now held in the Petit Palais, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris—was bequeathed by the last surviving member of childless siblings: Eugène (1806–1886), Héloïse (1810–1874), and Auguste (1812–1902) Dutuit. All three were heirs to a considerable fortune amassed by their two paternal and maternal ancestors, Pierre-Etienne Dutuit (1742–1811) and Jacques-Vivien Duclos (1745–1837), in cotton spinning and cotton trade, in Normandy, Provence, and Paris (Chaline, J.-P., 1982, pp. 110–114). They devoted most of their lives to compiling an extraordinary artistic collection. The activities of Eugène Dutuit, the eldest, who is mainly known as a collector of prints and books, and those of Auguste Dutuit, the youngest of the children, as a collector of antiques, are well known. Their sister’s activities are less well known. Perhaps she may have been forgotten if her brother Auguste, in the first will (and repeated in later wills) he drew up on 30 September 1886, had not mentioned: ‘the well-known art collection, which belonged in equal measure to my sister Amédée-Jean-Baptiste Héloïse Dutuit, my brother Eugène Dutuit, and myself’.

Very few documents about Héloïse Dutuit exist in the archives relating to the collection (the inheritance archives held in the Seine-Maritime’s Archives Départementales (not classified), the archives of the Petit Palais, in Paris, and the archives of the Bureau des Dons et Legs (donations and bequests) of the City of Paris). And yet, Georges Cain (1853–1919), the Curator of the Musée Carnavalet between 1897 and 1914 who was responsible for receiving the bequest for the Ville de Paris in 1902, designated her as being at the origin of the Asian Collection: ‘Mademoiselle Héloïse Dutuit (…) had assembled a very precious collection of Chinese and Japanese objects, lacquer objects, jades, and ivory boxes; she managed, through her perfect selection of these fragile objects, to add a feminine and charming touch to this slightly austere collection’. (Cain, G., 1902, p. 442). Perhaps Georges Cain,when he was drawing up the inventories of the collection in 1902 (AP (Paris archives), 3111W40), came across other accounts. But we do not know and we are only aware of several invoices sent for settlement to her brother Eugène by the Maison Beurdeley: ‘On 22 July 1862. By Mademoiselle Dutuit. Four Chinese cups. Bought for 110 francs’; ‘On 2 December [1863] to Mademoiselle Dutuit. Six Chinese plates. 240 francs.’; on 8 January 1870: ‘Your beautiful vase bought by Madame, your sister’ (MBAP PP (inv. no. unknown), box: ‘Dutuit Collection. Invoices for objects d’art’). Unfortunately, it is impossible to identify these objects in the collection held in the Petit Palais.

The hypothesis of Héloïse Dutuit’s major role in the history of this collection, even if it is relatively unconfirmed, should not be neglected. As recently highlighted by Elizabeth Emery, in the second half of the nineteenth century there was a distinct presence of women amongst collectors of Asian art (Emery E., 2020): that of Clémence d’Ennery (1823–1898), the founder of the museum that bears her name, is emblematic. The collection of Adèle de Rothschild (1843–1922), Baroness Salomon de Rothschild, similar to that of the Dutuits, has been studied recently (d’Abrigeon, P., 2019). Also worth mentioning, represented in the Musée Oriental in 1869 (see the Catalogue du Musée Oriental, which lists the names of the lenders), and, consequently concurrent with the Dutuit Collection, are the collections of Madame Desoye (1836–1909) and Madame Malinet, the wives and collaborators of dealers in curiosities. Indeed, while nothing or very little is known about Héloïse Dutuit, we do know—via the invoices, inventories, and correspondence—that she loved fur, shawls, jewellery, and socialising (see, in particular, the sale of her furniture in 1904, ADSM, 6 E 1 808).

The archives of her two brothers are more extensive, and, as they lived longer lives, there are also far more accounts of their passion for Asian objects. Their correspondence (ADSM, 220 JP 2068) provides several examples: in April 1868, Auguste wrote: ‘I must compliment you on your five Chinese pots. I know they were expensive, but they are very fine’. These were eighteenth-century red vases exhibited and reproduced in 1869 under no. 8 (MBAP PP, inv. no. ODUT1198). In June 1875, Auguste purchased ‘blancs de Chine’, which he immediately transferred to Rouen. No doubt this refers to the two eighteenth-century Fo dogs from the Petit Palais (MBAP PP inv. no. ODUT1209). In June 1878, he sent his brother ‘three Chinese items’, which are difficult to identify. Hence, it is to be noted that certain objects in the collection were acquired in Italy, as Auguste Dutuit had been living in Rome since at least 1862 (Los Llanos, J., 2015, p. 17).

Other archive documents, invoices, and memoirs provide information about the dealers in curiosities with whom they did business in Paris, in particular with regard to their Chinese and Japanese collection. In addition to Louis-Auguste-Alfred Beurdeley (1808–1882) who ran the shop at the ‘Pavillon de Hanovre’, 33 Boulevard des Italiens, we should also mention Nicolas-Joseph Malinet (1805–1886), based at 25 Quai Voltaire, and Delange, father and son, at 15 Quai Voltaire. Carle, the son of Joseph-Henri Delange (1805–1876), gradually took over from his father as one of the most active intermediaries for the Dutuits’ acquisitions at public sales. Their name features very often in their correspondence. The oldest of the invoices dates from 1855, and it was issued by the Maison Beurdeley, but there is no mention of the buyer’s name: ‘Two small cups. Chinese porcelain. Bought for 60 francs’ (MBAP PP, (inv. no. unknown), box: ‘Dutuit Collection. Invoices for objects d’art’). It is feasible, nevertheless, that their acquisitions were made earlier.

The names of these dealers also appear in documents relating to exhibitions to which they regularly loaned objects: the Dutuits had a habit of leaving their acquisitions with their suppliers. They are mentioned again in their correspondence, in particular, during the events of the Paris Commune (ADSM, 220 JP 2068). At the time, Delange and Malinet, neighbours of the Palais d’Orsay, which burned down on 23 May 1871, kept a large number of the Dutuits’ objects in their storerooms: they had legitimate concerns about their acquisitions. Later, after the death of his brother Eugène, in 1886, Auguste Dutuit, who later on lived on a more regular basis in Rome, continued to maintain very close, even friendly, relations, with these dealers who represented his interests in France.

1869: the Dutuit Collection is exhibited in the Musée Oriental

It was in 1869 that their Asian collection was consecrated, although it barely developed. At the time, the Dutuits presented an ensemble of almost one hundred Chinese and Japanese objects in the ‘Musée Oriental’, an event held by the Union Centrale des Beaux-Arts Appliqués à l’Industrie in the Palais de l’Industrie. A specific catalogue was published on this occasion, at their own expense: Souvenir de l’Exposition de M. Dutuit (Extrait de son collection) (1869). Who in fact was the name ‘Monsieur Dutuit’ referring to? It must be assumed that Eugène organised this endeavour, even though his first name is not mentioned—which is perhaps a way of implicitly associating his brother and sister: at the time, Héloïse is believed to have been active in this market. This luxurious, richly illustrated work presents a broad panorama of the Dutuit collections, going beyond the mere ‘Musée Oriental’: indeed, other rooms were reserved for them in the Palais de l’Industrie. The first section, devoted to prints (467 articles), and the second to books (68 articles), bore the mark of Eugène; that dedicated to antiques (67 articles) bore that of Auguste; the catalogue concluded with the Eastern and Middle-Eastern section (95 articles). Eugène Dutuit definitely drafted the foreword, but did not sign it: this only concerned the prints. The collector and historian of ceramics, Paul Gasnault (1828–1898), a member of the ‘Commission du Musée Oriental’ and the ‘Sous-Commission du Catalogue’, drafted the section devoted to ‘Objects Orientaux’. The latter, preceded by a brief introduction, was not very detailed, neglecting, for example, to provide the dimensions and provenances—with the notable exception of two large dishes that came from the ‘Monville Sale’ (nos. 13 and 14 of the catalogue, which were perhaps listed as nos. 190 and 206 in the catalogue of the Monville Sale, although the first dish was described as Japanese and not Chinese). The five chromolithographs that complemented it were reproduced after drawings by the dealer and expert Carle Delange (1837–?), who also established the catalogue for the antiques section. It is important to note that these reputedly exceptional dishes do not feature in the inventories of the Petit Palais, where it appears they never arrived, and were neither quoted nor even mentioned in the first texts published by Georges Cain (1853–1919) or in the first catalogues compiled by Henry Lapauze (1867–1925).

The ‘Musée Oriental’ was unique. With the exception of the loan of ‘Two Chinese cloisonné enamel jardinières’ to an exhibition held at the Palais de Justice in Rouen, in 1861 (Rouen, 1861, p. 12)—and perhaps the ‘retrospective Museum’ in the 1868 ’Exposition Maritime Internationale du Havre’ (no catalogue), but Dutuit was major lender and the name was ‘mentioned everywhere’ (Mantz, P., 1868, p. 476)—the Dutuits never showed their Chinese and Japanese objects in other circumstances, even though they contributed almost every year to retrospective exhibitions. Worthy of mention are those of the Union Centrale des Beaux-Arts Appliqués à l’Industrie held in 1865, 1880, and 1882, and those at the 1867, 1878, and 1889 Expositions Internationales or Universelles; and the Évreux exhibitions (Palais de Justice) in 1864, and in Rouen (Palais des Consuls) in 1884. Not to mention the exhibitions solely dedicated to engraving, books, or drawings … (Los Llanos, J., 2015).

An original collection?

Within the Dutuit collections, which were intended to be generalist and even encyclopaedic, the Oriental section had a numerically significant place with just over four hundred articles, but it was overlooked in the scientific literature devoted to the bequest. Ceramics dominated, with more than three hundred vases, and Chinese and Japanese plates and dishes. There were also fifty-one lacquer objects, mostly from Japan, even though their owners thought they were Chinese at the time, and nine hardstone, jade, and agate objects. With regard to eras, most of the works date from the modern era and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Lapauze, H., 1907, pp. 226–234 and 290–294). Several articles date from the nineteenth century. There were no Japanese prints and no archaic Chinese bronze pieces, the fashion for which probably emerged too late for collectors whose taste had been formed during the July Monarchy.

The predilection for ceramics corresponds to the tastes of the times, but it was also one of the main specialisations of the Dutuit collections, held in the Musée du Petit Palais, and was present in their Antique (Greek vases), Renaissance (Italian majolica and ceramic wares from Saint-Porchaire or the School of Palissy), and Modern (Sèvres porcelain and faience from Rouen) collections. The major series of plates that were identical in the collection’s inventoriesChinese (from the East Indies Company, with so-called ‘à la Pompadour’ decorations) and Japanese (in the Imari style)were wrongly believed to be used as tableware: but this was not common practice amongst collectors. Another element is highlighted: a taste for mounted porcelain articles. There were certain high-quality mounts in the Dutuit collection, such as those adorning two seventeenth-century blue Chinese seals (MBAP PP inv. no. ODUT1190 1 and 2), which Stéphane Castelluccio recently identified in the 1729 inventory of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne (Castelluccio, S., 2012, p. 56, repr. illus. 14). The Maison Beurdeley was reputed for its ancient mounts, Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI bronzes, as well as for the quality of its craftsmen, who were able to make incredible imitations of them.

The collection of lacquer objects was more original and is better known thanks to the work of Geneviève Lacambre, conducted as part of the exhibition she held in 2010. On this occasion, she rescued from oblivion the Dutuit collection of lacquered objects held in the storerooms, exhibiting and publishing ten of the most remarkable objects from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Lacambre, G., 2010, nos. 14, 21, 45, 54, 59, 66, 67, 68, 70, and 71). In particular, she highlighted the importance of two seventeenth-century objects: a temple-shaped casket (MBAP PP inv. no. ODUT1494), from Dominique-Vivant Denon’s collection (sale of 15 January 1827, no. 1206; the sale scheduled for 1826 was held in 1827. See Dubois, 1826), and a writing desk (MBAP PP inv. no. ODUT1484) from the Kyoto workshops. As she has since established, both came from the Cardinal de Mazarin’s collection (2016, unpublished). While both featured, of course, in the ‘Musée Oriental’, the casket was one of the five objects reproduced by Carle Delange in the catalogue, which attests to the value attributed to it by the owners (Dutuit, E., 1869, p. 104, no. 63, repr. not specified).

Like the rest of the Dutuit collection, the ensemble of Eastern objects was not displayed in a specific way in the residences in which the collectors lived: there is no trace of a porcelain cabinet—like that of the Baroness Salomon de Rothschild. The only publicity they gave to their collection, aside from the researchers they welcomed, was that of exhibitions and catalogues (Lapauze, H., 1907, pp. 11–59); and the only showcase they wished for their collections was that of the museum to which they were eventually bequeathed.